New York City Board of Health Weighing a Ban on Large Movie Popcorn

Look out, New Yorkers — Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Board of Health aren’t just after your large sodas. Now they want your bucket-sized popcorn and jumbo milkshakes, too.

The board met on Tuesday and agreed to a six-week public comment period before deciding on the large soda ban, which it has already indicated it likes. But New Yorkers, on the other hand, don’t. According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, Big Apple residents oppose the soda ban 51 to 46 percent.

Regardless, some board members are hell-bent on slimming down the 58 percent New York City adults who are either overweight or obese — so they’ve targeted other high-calorie foods for potential bans, including the large popcorn sizes served in movie theaters as well as milkshakes and coffee beverages made with milk.

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” City Board of Health member Bruce Vladeck said, with another board member, Dr. Joel Forman, adding, “There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories.”

A large movie popcorn with butter often has a whopping 1600 calories, but NYC denizens aren’t likely to go for a downsizing proposal on that any more than they like the idea of having to buy two smaller sodas instead of one big one.

“Is he your mayor or your nanny? New Yorkers are not swallowing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed curb on big buckets of soda,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “They doubt that a soda ban would do much to slim down public obesity.”